The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson

While Hyman may have been a wonderful intellectual partner at first, he turned out to be quite a terrible husband. Growing up in a conservative family in San Francisco, with a cruel and controlling mother, Jackson found in Stanley Edgar Hyman, also a writer, the bohemian and encouraging life companion she desired. Shirley Jackson certainly knew something about unhappy marriages. “I think she had a real sense that women, particularly, were subject to social forces that acted upon their lives in ways which they couldn't control and often were quite dangerous,” says Ruth Franklin, author of the biography Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life.

“There’s more than you think when you look at me,” says the main character, a single 34-year-old woman, in The Daemon Lover. In big cities or small towns, they’re subdued into playing a specific and restricted role. Feeling ostracized and lonely, they struggle to make sense of a world that refuses to acknowledge them. Women are usually the protagonists of Jackson’s stories, driven to despair by either marriage or their idea of it. Jackson explores the darker aspects of living in a community – the repression and unachievable expectations. Hypocrisy is a major component, whether it’s the veiled racism in Flower Garden, the condescension in Come Dance With Me in Ireland, or the vanity in Afternoon in Linen. Typically considered a horror writer, Jackson writes about the everyday cruelties of society, where the violence is more psychological than physical. Unease and suspense are never lacking in The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson.

Image courtesy of Penguin Random House UK. The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson. However, as the story continues, a growing sense of unease conveys the feeling that this is one lottery we’d prefer not to win. The premise is simple - a small town gathers for their annual lottery. Since then, it has become one of the most important and widely read stories in the history of American literature. After The Lottery was published in The New Yorker in 1948, the magazine received a “ torrent of letters” that resulted in many cancelled subscriptions.